I have written four books on filesystems.

The below soft-pedals the truth. #sysadmin https://t.co/oHmiy35Htv

— Like Mucas: Making Words & Punching Fascists (@mwlauthor) October 5, 2020

When you understand how anything in computers work, it’s like that. There are just so many hacks, workarounds, bits of strangeness, cobbled-together nonsense, should-be long-defunct dirty tricks we are forced to use — it’s amazing that anything works ever, much less that it tends to do so reliably.

I understand from start to finish how a computer boots, but it still blows my mind to think about it. That’s as close to magic as we get in this world.